One would think the whips were going for Kassie as they shot forward — in fact, I almost thought so too. But the tentacles changed direction mid-strike, as if they’d recognized sothing dreadful in the path they were heading. Sothing that made a cornered human with daggers look like the safer target.
’Well. That’s not terrifying at all.’
Each tentacle curled with unsettling independence, moving like they had minds of their own. I was watchful, tense, ready — but it still wasn’t enough to prepare for the devastation that ca a few seconds later.
’Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.’
I saw it coming and got my guard up. Caught Kassie in my peripheral vision as I did.
She was casually walking backward, as if giving space. As if this was a sparring match and not a fight for my life.
The first tentacle slamd against my crossed daggers with enough force to rattle my teeth. The second followed imdiately but changed targets — it drove into my belly like a battering ram, throwing a step backward. I bent double, spitting water, lungs seizing.
The third and fourth ca in that sa brutal succession. One hamred into my guard again, tearing my daggers apart with raw strength. The last one caught square in the face.
The world went sideways. Then vertical. Then my back hit stone.
The tentacles had already twirled again, coiling snakishly in the air above , tips weaving like they were deciding which part of to destroy next. I knew I had no ti to stay down — knew it with the kind of clarity that only cos when sothing wants to kill you — so I rolled away on pure instinct.
A smashing sound erupted where I’d been lying. Stone fragnts peppered my back.
I didn’t try to stand. Just kept rolling. The second tentacle pierced the ground where I’d been a heartbeat before, scattering debris. The Third one, the fourth... Each impact sent tremors through the cave floor, each strike closer than the last, the creature tracking my movent with horrifying precision.
It wasn’t until after the fourth impact that I finally sprang up and sprinted to a corner — sowhere the beast would have to turn its bulk to face . Buy myself a few seconds. Maybe figure out how not to die.
The creature snarled, low and wet, as it retracted its tentacles.
"Hey... Kassie—"
"You’re doing well." She said it flatly, like she was comnting on my dancing skills. "Keep going."
"Not with these dagg—"
Before I could finish the sentence, the creature lunged.
I threw myself sideways, feeling the wind of its passage as jaws snapped shut where my head had been. The sound of those teeth coming together was like two stones grinding. I rolled, ca up with my daggers raised, and imdiately realized how monuntally stupid that was.
Daggers? Against sothing the size of a small horse with four independent tentacles.
’I really need a change of weapon, dammit!’
I was going to die in this cave because I brought a kitchen knife to a monster fight. Fantastic. Really excellent life choices all around.
But complaining wasn’t going to keep breathing. I circled left, keeping my eyes locked on the beast as it turned to track . Its tentacles writhed above its back, those crimson tips twitching like they were tasting the air. Testing it. Learning my patterns.
’Okay. Think.’
Four tentacles ant four attack vectors, but they all originated from the sa source — its back. If I could get beneath it, or behind where the tentacles sprouted, I’d have a window. A small one. Probably asured in fractions of a second.
Better than nothing.
The beast charged again.
This ti I was ready. I waited until the last possible mont — until I could see the individual teeth in that gaping maw — then pivoted hard to my right, letting it barrel past. As it passed, I slashed at its flank. Felt the blade bite into sothing solid beneath that matted hide. Felt resistance, then give.
The creature shrieked.
I allowed myself one mont of satisfaction.
Then a tentacle whipped around and caught across the chest.
The impact lifted off my feet. I flew backward, hit the cave floor, and skidded until my back slamd into a boulder. Pain exploded through my ribs — sharp, imdiate, wrong. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Just lay there trying to rember how lungs worked while my vision swam with black spots.
’One hit. One hit and I’m already—’
The beast was coming.
I forced myself up. My legs felt like they belonged to soone else, soone who’d never learned to walk, but fear is a hell of a motivator. I got my dagger up just in ti to deflect a tentacle strike, the impact jarring my arm so badly I nearly dropped the weapon.
Another tentacle ca from the left.
I ducked.
A third from above.
I stumbled backward, barely avoiding it, heel catching on loose stone.
The fourth caught my ankle and yanked.
The world inverted. Suddenly I was upside down, being lifted into the air, blood rushing to my head while the cave spun around . The beast brought closer to its face — those hollow, weeping eyes studying with what looked horribly like intelligence. Like curiosity.
’This is how I die. Dangling like a fish on a hook while a nightmare decides how to eat .’
I did the only thing I could think of.
I threw my daggers at its eye.
The first blade was slapped away with a tentacle, getting lost in the darkness but the second followed imdiately and sank into the socket with a wet, aty sound. The creature scread — a horrible, echoing shriek that seed to co from everywhere at once, bouncing off the cave walls until it was inside my skull — and the tentacle released .
I hit the ground hard, shoulder first. Sothing crunched. Probably sothing important. I didn’t have ti to care.
I scrambled away on all fours, putting distance between myself and the thrashing beast. It was clawing at its own face with two tentacles, trying to dislodge my dagger, montarily blind to everything except its own agony.
’Okay. Good. Bought myself maybe ten seconds. Now what?’
Now I had no weapon.
’Brilliant strategy, Cade. Truly masterful. Really outdid yourself on that one.’
The beast ripped my dagger free with one tentacle and flung it across the cave. I heard it clatter sowhere in the darkness, the sound distant and final. Too far to retrieve. The creature’s ruined eye socket leaked that sa liquid darkness as before, mixing with sothing thicker that might have been blood.
It turned toward .
One eye was gone, but the other burned with sothing I could only describe as hatred. Not animal fury—not the mindless rage of a wounded predator. Actual, thinking hatred. This thing was going to make suffer for what I’d done.
I glanced at Kassie. She hadn’t moved. Just stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, watching like this was a moderately interesting docuntary.
’A little help would be—’
"You have two legs," she said calmly. "Use them."
The beast charged.
I ran.
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